


A Lazy Morning

by anticyclone



Series: Radio Days [2]
Category: Good Omens (Radio), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Contrast, Eden - Freeform, Good Omens Radio, M/M, Radio Omens, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Wing Grooming, Wing Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 09:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: "Where are you being sent next, angel?" Crawly asks, his voice low and as dark as the skin of the apple.Eden is empty, but Crawly hasn't gotten his marching orders yet. He doesn't have anywhere to be. Aziraphale can't say the same, but Crawly's already proved he's very good at temptation.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Radio Days [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728460
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77
Collections: Good Omens Celebration





	A Lazy Morning

Sometime after dawn, or at least what feels like dawn, Crawly opens one yellow eye. It's cold. His coils rest on the flat stone top of Eden's wall, and the stone is rain-chilled although the storm is over. The stone is decidedly less comfortable than Aziraphale's lush robes and generous lap. Crawly reluctantly pokes his head out from his nest of coils, spots an angel several meters away, and hisses to flash fang.

"Really," Aziraphale mutters. His wings rustle. "It seemed like you were going to sleep all day, you couldn't expect me to let you lay in my lap all that time. My legs were getting tingly."

How had the angel even managed to wiggle out from underneath Crawly without waking him up? Aziraphale's stationed himself several meters away under a fruit tree. He's plucked, of all things, an apple. The skin is such a dark reddish-purple that in the dim light it looks black.

At Crawly snapping his jaws shut, Aziraphale rolls his eyes and polishes the apple on his robe before taking a bite. 

It's no wonder Crawly had mistaken the time for nearly-dawn. What he can see of the sky through the trees is still dark from edge to edge. The air is no longer heavy from the storm, but when he flicks his tongue out he can smell the oil Eden released as the rain cleared. The soil smells like life. Which is funny, because he has the distinct and demonic feeling that aside from the plants, the only life left in Eden is Aziraphale and himself.

"What happened to all the animalss?" Satan save him, he has to do something about that sibilance.

"They left," Aziraphale tells him, mouth full of apple. He swallows and takes another bite before continuing. Past the skin, the apple flesh is bright white. It drips clear juice onto Aziraphale's lips and chin. "We should really be on our way, too. I've already received my next assignment. I'm sure yours isn't far behind. Idle hands and all."

"As you repeatedly pointed out last night, I don't have hands," Crawly says, carefully. Single s's. Excellent.

Aziraphale's wings rustle again, drawing back and up. The white feathers are still storm-tousled.

"I am not sure your management will care whether you open your scroll with fingers or fangs," Aziraphale says.

His tongue darts out to lick apple juice off his bottom lip. A drop clinging to his chin slides down the dark line of his throat.

Crawly stretches his head out and slithers along the stone. He keeps his yellow eyes fixed on Aziraphale's throat. For his part, Aziraphale's pale eyes drift back to the horizon beyond Eden. He continues eating his apple. Wholly ignores Crawly drawing a loop with his body around his feet, then another, carefully piling his coils atop each other until he can stretch his head up and meet Aziraphale eye-to-eye.

"Where are you being sent next, angel?" he asks, his voice low and as dark as the skin of the apple.

"Wouldn't you like to know." Aziraphale reaches out with his free hand.

For a second Crawly thinks he is going to have a warm fingertip stroking the underside of his chin and trailing down his scales, like he had - several times - last night. But instead Aziraphale pauses, smiles like the sun unexpectedly blinding you from a gap between the clouds, and bops his fingertip against the end of Crawly's nose.

Crawly feels his jaw open.

Aziraphale giggles.

"What," Crawly says. "Was. That."

"Don't think you can try your menacing act on me. You've shown me all your cards already."

Still smiling, Aziraphale polishes off the last of his apple. He looks questioningly at the core for a moment before humming under his breath and tossing it high into the air and over his shoulder. It makes an organic sort of sound as it hits a tree and tumbles back into Eden to decompose.

Aziraphale does all this without seeming to mind Crawly dropping back down to the base loop of coils he'd made. He does all this without seeming to notice that Crawly does not simply sit there, puddled on top of himself. Or that Crawly pushes his head behind Aziraphale before rising up again. It's a tricky thing, bringing his snake head level with Aziraphale's - no, wait, several inches taller than Aziraphale's, don't mind if he does - while vanishing the extra length of his body. A tricky thing, but worth it. A man-shaped creature does not need to be as tall as a serpent is long.

And because he hadn't been paying attention, Aziraphale lets out a little gasp when Crawly's hands - two of them, five fingers each - gently slide into his wings, a few inches off from where they join to his back.

"You haven't seen half my cards," Crawly promises.

"Oh," Aziraphale says. He tries to rustle his wings, but Crawly digs his hands in a little more, his touch tender but insistent, holding them still. Only the feathers at the end of Aziraphale's wings flutter. Aziraphale says, again, "Oh."

Crawly leans forward and presses his mouth to Aziraphale's neck. He scrapes his teeth along brown skin. A high whine tumbles out of Aziraphale's mouth, and Crawly tugs on his wings, pulling the angel back up against him. His white robe bunches up against the black fabric of Crawly's and his legs part just enough for Crawly to press his knee in between Aziraphale's thighs. Aziraphale's feathers are soft and plush in his hands and his thighs, well.

It isn't like being wrapped around Aziraphale's torso and lying across his lap. But it doesn't need to be.

"Crawly," Aziraphale whines, again trying and failing to flex his wings. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but don't you dare stop."

Crawly laughs against Aziraphale's neck. He drags a still-forked tongue across a freckle. "I told you I don't like that name."

"I will call you whatever you want!"

Deciding to be merciful, Crawly lets go of one of Aziraphale's wings. But only to reach forward and cup his palm across Aziraphale's throat. It lets him tilt Aziraphale's chin up. He feels Aziraphale swallow, and he feels him start to pant for breath when Crawly's own wings unfurl. Crawly brings them up and stretches them out and forward, shielding the two of them from the gray sky the way Aziraphale had done last night against the storm.

Of course their wings are the same.[1] They've both had their wings from the start, after all.

"Aziraphale," Crawly purrs. He nudges several of Aziraphale's feathers together so the edges lock again, flat and straight and smooth. "Are you always this sensitive when you're having your wings fixed up?"

"Is that what this is? Hell certainly rewrote the rules of operation." Aziraphale's voice is awfully breathy for someone trying to be censorious.

Which Crawly would remark on, except he finds that he enjoys Aziraphale's voice high and breathy. He kisses Aziraphale's curly, shock-white hair where it meets his skin, and he kisses a freckle he finds on the shell of Aziraphale's ear. Aziraphale writhes in his grip. He flexes his free wing and it bumps up against Crawly's and, ah.

"That's the ticket," Crawly declares.

The tree with the purple-black apples is old. Or it's large, anyway - everything here is old and new at the same time, including the two of them. The point is the wide trunk stretches taller than the wall itself. It turns out to be the perfect spot to lean against, when they are done fumbling and Aziraphale has turned around to return some of Crawly's kisses. His mouth opens under Crawly's. He tastes like apple. Both his hands latch onto Crawly's black robe when he realizes Crawly's tongue is still forked. Crawly presses his knee between Aziraphale's thighs again and rocks his leg almost absent-mindedly.

The sound that draws out of Aziraphale's throat vibrates with holy harmonies and stings Crawly's ears. It's not nice, it's the opposite of nice, but it feels - Like something Crawly would like to continue feeling.

Crawly stretches both hands up high and braces his palms against the bark of the apple tree.

"What are you - Oh, I see, ye _s_ ," Aziraphale stammers, closing his eyes. Crawly is privately pleased to note the hiss at the end of 'yes.'

He earns himself another one when he folds one wing in and flicks it forward, dragging the edge of his wing through Aziraphale's feathers. If Aziraphale feels anything like what Crawly is feeling, his wing must be crackling. When it comes down to it wings are nothing more than temporarily solid divine or infernal essence. Aziraphale's feathers are soft as æther and sting the same way his voice does.

Crawly leans his weight forward and drags his wing across Aziraphale's until it brushes the angel's side. The feeling of their feathers brushing bursts through his wing and sparks black at the corners of his eyes.

Sudden and sharp, Crawly smells apples, and realizes his lips are parted because he's started breathing hard. 

Aziraphale flexes his other wing forward, using it to cup Crawly's unoccupied one. It means that for a moment all Crawly sees in the corners of his eyes are feathers, but it _feels_ like without the tree to brace himself on he'd be melting over the side of the wall.

Both of Aziraphale's eyes flutter open. Crawly makes sure his teeth are sharp when grins. And in Aziraphale's words, they proceed to "take their sweet time."

By the end, all Crawly wants to do was sit. But there is still the matter of Aziraphale's wings.[2]

"I swear, the last time you groomed these must've been when Eden first opened," he complains. He's sitting cross-legged behind Aziraphale, who has his palms flat on the stone at his sides and his legs stretched out before him. His wings are helpfully stretched to allow Crawly access. Desperately necessary access. "This can't all be storm damage. Or _me._ "

"I thought I was supposed to be the judgy one."

"It's basic wing care."

"I was busy!"

"I was busy too," Crawly drawls. "If you failed to notice."

"I - Oh, my, look at this," Aziraphale says. He suddenly leans forward, his wing sliding out from beneath Crawly's fingers to blithely knock Crawly in the face. It does not feel like having teasing feathers skim over his. It feel slike getting knocked in the face with a bloody giant wing.

Crawly rubs his hand against his nose. "What wass that for?"

Unable to twist around without hitting him again, Aziraphale lifts one hand in the air. In his fingers is a slender scroll, tied with red ribbon.

Crawly blesses under his breath and grabs the scroll. The ribbon singes his fingertips when he pulls at it, and the glittering black ink sears his eyes when he read the words, but it could be worse. It could have burst into flame at his touch. Orders from Hell do get impatient like that.

"Does it say where you're being sent next?" Aziraphale asks.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Cra-" Aziraphale stops himself and huffs. "My dear boy."

All right. That does make Crawly grin. "Come on, stretch your wings back out. I'll tell you when I'm done."

It's all a pantomime. There's only the two humans, and there's only so far they can get on foot, even with a flaming sword (which, Crawly, imagines, is not terrifically practical as transport). The angel and demon are bound to end up in the same place again. At least until there's more to guard, more to trouble themselves with.

Won't catch Crawly complaining.

**Author's Note:**

> 1. Aside from the fact that Crawly's aren't a mess.↩
> 
> 2. Admittedly, Crawly is now to blame for this.↩
> 
> Footnotes generated with thedeadparrot's footnote formatter: https://codepen.io/thedeadparrot/full/mdyXyzw


End file.
